


City of Dreams

by Tarlan



Series: Sentience [3]
Category: Stargate Atlantis, Stargate SG-1
Genre: Community: fanfic100, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2007-03-04
Updated: 2007-03-04
Packaged: 2017-10-21 00:45:50
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,963
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/219057
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Tarlan/pseuds/Tarlan
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Weeks have passed in Atlantis but a discovery proves they were never entirely alone.</p>
            </blockquote>





	City of Dreams

**Author's Note:**

> Fanfic100 challenge. Prompt 008. Weeks.

Atlantis had no voice except for the rare, almost musical blare of the alarms. There was no HAL computer asking them what they were doing other than the holographic Ancient woman who answered their questions far too literally for them to completely understand her. She told them very little more about the Wraith, other than that they were a long lived race that fed off the life force of a human. She told them they could hibernate for centuries at a time, never growing old, the life force sustaining them, making them seemingly immortal. These creatures had driven the Ancients from Atlantis, from the Pegasus galaxy even. These creatures had brought the entire galaxy to its knees, feeding off the seedlings scattered among the stars by the Ancients, destroying whole civilizations and plunging every race back into the pre-industrial age.

Rodney swallowed hard as the Stargate activated again, failing to lock onto the seventh chevron as it had done every night since their arrival two weeks earlier. The timing was exactly the same between dialing attempts, pointing towards an automated sequence but what concerned Rodney most was the fact that it was rarely the same incoming address. The Ancients implied that the Wraiths' technology was comparable to their own, and much of that was still beyond even Rodney's ability to decipher though he had made great inroads since joining the Stargate project.

If the Wraith were long lived then perhaps they were still out there, quietly battering at the defenses of this city, testing the shield each day, and patiently waiting for the day when that seventh chevron locked giving them access to the great city. From Atlantis, they would have access to wherever the Ancients had fled ten thousand years earlier. He shuddered at the thought because they had fled to Earth, to the Milky Way with its billions upon billions of humans, a veritable Smorgasbord for the Wraith. The only consolation was that the Wraith did not know they were in Atlantis and, as long as they remained in ignorance, then the remnants of the expedition should remain safe from them.

Rodney reached out and touched one of the beautiful wall panels, stroking it gently while saying a silent thanks to the city. He frowned at the warm sensation that rippled through him, quickly shaking it off as his own relief at knowing they were safe for the time being. However, their supplies could not last forever. Eventually, they would need to replenish those supplies from other worlds but, with the city hundreds of feet beneath the surface of an alien sea, they had little option but to figure out a way to break through the lock on the Stargate.

"Rodney?"

He tapped at his radio when he recognized Peter's voice. "Here."

"Dr. Zelenka has made a discovery you need to see."

"This better be good."

Rodney sighed. He had managed to curb the over-enthusiasm from most of the scientists and soldiers by now because everything here was something he needed to see. Every tiny seemingly innocuous item could be a potential threat or their salvation but dragging Rodney all over the, admittedly small explored areas of Atlantis to see these discoveries took a lot of hours from his day. Combined with his sudden promotion to Joint Expedition leader, it left him with little time to address the bigger issues, like the shield over the Stargate and the ZPM that had shown an increase in its rate of depletion since they arrived. It would still outlive them but only if they kept their power consumption at the current level. However, that made it impossible to extend their exploration too far as every step into a darkened hallway brought systems in that whole area online. Lights, heating, maintenance programs and a plethora of other energy consuming tasks and equipment would light up eagerly, further depleting the ZPM. For this reason, they had restricted exploration to this central tower only, not wanting to risk initializing whole other towers that they had little use for at this time. With only fifty-six of them, there was enough here to keep most everyone occupied, including their single botanist who was stunned that the ten thousand-year-old dead plants in the corridors had not turned to dust and were, in fact, starting to come back to life as if they had slept along with the city.

He took the details off Grodin and headed down six levels, following the length of a newly investigated corridor until he came to a junction. Several marines were hovering outside one of the unknown laboratories and they straightened fractionally as Rodney approached, fatigued from the long walk. Rodney's irritation faded when he saw his lover standing in the center of the room, eyes meeting as John half-turned at his entrance. The slightest twitch upwards of the soft, kissable lips was Rodney's only welcome before John turned back to the far wall. Rodney looked there too, surprised to find a woman frozen in a stasis pod similar to the one used in Antarctica by Jack O'Neill. The major difference was that this woman was extremely old, with hair the color of snow and deep lines and wrinkles etched into her skin. She was also vaguely familiar, which seemed nonsensical as no one had stepped into Atlantis in more than ten thousand years so it was hardly likely that he could recognize her, unless her likeness had graced the pages of one of Daniel Jackson's ancient text books on Babylonians, Ancient Greeks, or some other old civilization. He stepped up close and gazed at her intently before turning his attention to the control panel situated close by.

"According to this, she's been in stasis since the Ancients abandoned Atlantis... except for two wake-up calls, four thousand years apart."

He frowned, noting that a third wake-up call was supposed to have happened the moment they stepped into the city but either the automated code had failed or something had overridden it. Under the circumstances, Rodney was willing to bet that Atlantis had prevented the wake-up call to stop whoever this was from interfering with its plans concerning the new arrivals. Carson's arrival prevented further thoughts along that line but John was the one to voice the next question uppermost in his mind.

"So...can we wake her?"

"Shouldn't be too hard," he responded, reaching out towards the control panel only to have Carson grab his wrist.

"Not so fast, Rodney. She's very old. I need to have some equipment on hand before we attempt to remove her from the stasis pod."

It was frustrating but Rodney sighed in resignation, not wanting to cause an unnecessary death through impatience. He half-listened as Carson barked out orders to the few medical personnel who had been allowed to remain in Atlantis because of their gene. Most of them would be ensconced in the small medical facility they had discovered during that tentative search of the first week, still checking through all the expedition supplies and turning the facility into a fully functional infirmary. Their work was hampered by a need to check with Rodney every time they located another piece of Ancient technology, with no one willing to risk turning it on and using it until they knew exactly what it was capable of doing. Some larger items refused to switch on no matter how hard anyone thought at them, including John but Rodney figured out very quickly that Atlantis was intervening in those cases. He realized this after spending all of his spare time trying to find a reference to one particular piece of medical technology only to discover that it was a scanner that could prove lethal in the wrong hands. Carson and the only other medical doctor had to quickly overcome their fear of the Ancient technology so they could learn how to handle it in case of an emergency, using the holographic interface as a learning tool.

As Rodney waited for Carson to organize his people, his gaze automatically flitted across the room to his lover. John was leaning nonchalantly against the wall close by but Rodney could read the tension in him nonetheless. He was as intrigued as Rodney concerning this woman and why she had been left behind when the others fled to Earth. From the way he cradled his P90, Rodney wondered if John suspected her of being far less innocent than she seemed in sleep. His grip tightened on the P90 when Carson indicated that he was ready to proceed.

Releasing the old woman was an anticlimax and Rodney could only frown as Carson and his people loaded her onto a gurney and wheeled her away at haste towards the infirmary. Leaving nothing to chance, John had followed, leaving Rodney standing alone in the strange laboratory. He stared around for a few moments and then set to work, eager to crack into the Ancient database set up for this laboratory alone in the hope that it might reveal the woman's purpose here. Hours later, he got a call from Carson telling him to come to the infirmary immediately. Rodney cast a final frustrated look at the database that had resisted all attempts so far to crack it, and headed off.

***

John stared down at the ancient woman in morbid fascination, frowning when Rodney pushed between him and the infirmary bed as her eyelashes began to flutter. He raised a hand to grasp his lover's arm, enjoying the touch as he thought of the pleasure to come when they returned to their room that evening. After just a few short weeks, he could no longer imagine sleeping alone, without the heavy weight and warmth of his lover beside him. Often he would wake in the middle of the night just to hear Rodney's soft breaths and to brush a hand along his silken flank before pressing a gentle kiss against his shoulder or the nape of his neck. Rodney would squirm in his sleep, wriggling and sighing in pleasure before settling back down.

Her eyes opened but she seemed to be staring into the ether, not acknowledging anyone around her.

"Hmm. I see the lights are on but no one's home." Rodney wiggled his fingers. "Too many millennia in stasis must have destroyed her mind."

"Rodney?" she croaked.

He stumbled back in surprise, catching John's foot and almost tripping backwards; John steadied him.

"Who...Who are you? How did you know...?" Rodney clicked his fingers. "Wait. Wait. Wait. She must have heard you calling my name while she was in her coma or...whatever."

"I've missed you, Rodney....and you too, John." Cataracts in her eyes gave them a milky glow but John watched as she smiled towards the doctor. "Carson," she whispered weakly, holding up a feeble hand. Compassion flared in Beckett's eyes and he took her aged hand in his, holding it carefully.

"Hello, love. Might you be telling us your name?"

Her face crinkled into a smile. "It's Elizabeth. I've waited so long to see you all again. So very long." Her smile faltered. "So much to tell you." Her voice faded as she drifted back into sleep, struggling every inch of the way.

Beckett looked up after a moment, eyebrows still raised in shock. "She's resting."

"Is that really Elizabeth?" John asked but Rodney knew that stranger things had happened to SG-1 so he was not ready to discount the possibility.

"I'll run a DNA test. I took genetic fingerprints from all the expedition members before we left the SGC. Hers should still be on file for a comparison."

Beckett rushed off leaving John alone with Rodney, who was still staring down into the aged face in semi-horror. Blue eyes turned up to meet his when John touched his shoulder again and, taking advantage of the almost empty infirmary, John gave into the impulse to comfort his lover. His lips grazed across Rodney's, one hand rising to tenderly caress the strong square jaw.

"I thought she was dead," Rodney whispered hoarsely. "I thought they were all dead. Maybe it didn't send them back to Earth at all. Maybe it sent them back in time." He frowned. "But then why keep us here, in this time? Why not send us all back?"

"Think we're going to have to wait until she wakes up again before we can figure that one out."

"I liked her, you know." Rodney stuck out his chin belligerently, as if he expected John to argue with him. He waved a hand, twirling it at the wrist. "Not in....that way but... For a politician she wasn't so bad."

John grabbed for his hand, stilling it as he brought it between their bodies, trapping it against his hardening groin. "I'm not worried. I know who you really like."

He leaned in and kissed Rodney, uncertain where this sudden need to claim his lover had come from but needing the confirmation that Rodney was his nonetheless. Soft lips parted easily, a low moan vibrating against his own lips as Rodney surrendered to him, bending to his will as John's hand slipped beneath his soft t-shirt to touch silken flesh. He loved Rodney like this; pliant and willing, writhing at his touch. Rodney's hand squeezed gently, sending a shock of lust straight through John and it took all of his control not to bend Rodney over an empty infirmary bed, pull down his pants and fuck him raw. The rustle of movement in the bed close by pulled him back from the edge of that abyss and John shuddered at the terrible urge to drag Rodney back to their room. Instead, he rested his forehead against Rodney's, breathing harshly until he had regained control of his senses before pulling back to find those aged, milky eyes staring up at them in confusion.

"Elizabeth!" Rodney swallowed guiltily, like a kid caught with his hand in the cookie jar.

She focused inwards for a moment and then opened her hand to reveal a small piece of paper. Rodney took it from her, cheeks still flushed from earlier but freshly intrigued. He opened the folded paper and stared at the figures.

"Gate addresses." Rodney looked to Elizabeth. "What are these for?"

"ZPMs. The Ancients left ZPMs on those worlds for when they returned." She sighed heavily. "Janus gave the addresses to me."

"Janus?"

"He...helped me."

John listened in disbelief as she related a tale of arriving on Atlantis only to find the last ZPM nearing depletion. His eyebrows rose in disbelief as she told them how the city shield had failed, allowing the ocean to destroy the great city. She spoke of Janus and his time machine, built into one of the strange spaceships located in the hangar at the top of this main tower.

"I drowned?" Rodney seemed affronted at the idea.

John's eyes narrowed because he could not imagine any universe where he might have left Rodney behind. Rodney was far more than just his lover; he was his friend too. If anyone was left behind then it would have been Weir because John would have done everything within his power to ensure that Rodney was on board that ship even if he had to blast a hole into the gate room to reach him. He would never have left without him no matter the consequences. Rodney was everything to him and without him he had nothing. Drowning alongside him would have been preferable to leaving without him because, without Rodney, life simply held no value. So he listened carefully, allowing her to believe in the story she wove, of using the time machine to go ten thousand years back into the past, of coming under fire from the Wraith, with John and Zelenka dying while she was plucked from the cold sea. He listened to her stories of Janus, of how he had been the only one of the council willing to hear her out, willing to do something to save her doomed expedition. When she fell silent, drifting back into an exhausted sleep, John looked to Rodney and gave a wry smile.

"I'd never leave you behind," he stated solemnly and smiled as some of the tension left Rodney's face.

"Perhaps not in this universe," he stated softly but John could see how immensely pleased he was by his soft words and that crooked smile, how his eyes were glowing with love and happiness. "But she's here in this universe so she must have done something to change things." He frowned. "Janus." Rodney's eyes took on an inner focus that always made John want to smack him because he felt left behind, knowing Rodney was deep into thoughts where he could not follow. The blue eyes flashed back to him. "Janus!" he exclaimed and rushed away, leaving John as perplexed as always.

***

Daniel sighed as another day passed by and yet they seemed no closer to completing the _Daedalus_. He knew it was not Sam's fault, though he wished Thor had assigned an Asgard with a little more tolerance towards the humans with whom he was supposed to be working. Almost unbelievably, Hermiod was ruder and more arrogant than even Rodney McKay, not that Daniel had ever had any real problems with Rodney's attitude because he had peeked beneath the surface during his time spent in Antarctica and discovered someone worth knowing beneath all that arrogance and sarcasm. Simply put, he liked Rodney. He liked the fact that he knew exactly where he stood with Rodney, not having to guess what today's political agenda might be whereas, with Elizabeth, he knew she was always trying to manipulate him in one way or another.

Before the expedition set foot in Atlantis...No, it was before that, before Sheppard ever sat down in the chair in Antarctica, he'd had the strongest feeling that she was trying to get to Jack through him, working as if he was in a position to persuade Jack to join a civilian controlled expedition to the lost city of Atlantis. At the time, they had still assumed that Atlantis was somewhere in the Milky Way having realized that the first segments of the Stargate address placed it off world. Taking into account the various scrolls and legends handed down over generations, that made sense because he had already learned that the Ancients had left Earth to escape a plague that was devastating their people.

Perhaps it was an omen that on the very day he finally figured out where the Ancients had gone, John Sheppard had sat down in the control chair and made it sing for him, negating Jack's importance to Elizabeth. From that moment onwards, Elizabeth lost all interest in both him and Jack as potential expedition members and focused all her attention on Major Sheppard instead. Daniel sighed. He had a strong suspicion that if Sheppard had refused to go then the major would have found himself waking up in Atlantis anyway--from a drugged sleep. It simply made more sense for him to believe he'd had a choice about it.

As if was, no one could have anticipated that Sheppard would become quite so enamored with Rodney but the pair had become good friends from the day they met, finding something within each other than completed them. Still, it surprised Daniel that, for all her attention towards Sheppard, Elizabeth had not noticed the strong bond developing between the two men, feeling certain that she would have exploited it if that had been the case. Daniel had not needed to guess the depth of their friendship, or the physicality of it and so, it seemed, neither had Kavanagh. He had seen the way they looked at each other when they believed no one else was paying any attention. He had noticed the small touches and the almost bashful smiles that Rodney had found too difficult to hide because he was not used to dealing with that level of subterfuge. With Rodney, what you saw was what you got, a man who wore his heart on his sleeve for good or for bad. He had tried though. He had attempted to keep his relationship with Sheppard as low key as possible because of the way the US military frowned upon same-sex alliances but it was plainly obvious to anyone who cared to step back and look carefully enough.

Kavanagh outing them to Jack would cause no end of trouble even though Jack was not the type of person to be vindictive or appalled by homosexuality. He had seen too much in this galaxy to allow genuine love in any form to be considered an abomination but, despite his slightly checkered military career, he did try to honor the regulations and codes of practice associated with being a US military officer. Had the remark not been made in an open meeting then Jack would have figured out a way to make it disappear from the records but Sumner had been at the same meeting along with Sam Carter and others from the Atlantis expedition. He would have no choice but to act if they reached Atlantis and found Sheppard very much alive.

Over these past weeks, Daniel had bounced from relief to fear following his own declaration to Jack, waiting for the fallout in whatever form that would take. He had not meant to say anything to Jack, having long ago accepted that the love he felt might never be returned but he could not deny the thrill of seeing no outright rejection in Jack's eyes. If anything, he saw regret but whether that was for Daniel's unrequited love or for Jack's inability to return that affection openly remained to be seen.

Sam had said nothing about Sheppard and Rodney and, despite his attendance at all the important meetings following the revelation, Sumner had not mentioned it either. Daniel was not certain what to make of that either as Sumner had not come across as the open-minded type even though the SGC had tried to ensure its military were open to all possibilities. Of course, he might have been judging him too harshly based on a handful of meetings but Daniel's gut feelings tended to be fairly accurate, though not infallible. However, Sumner had not liked Sheppard even before Kavanagh's outburst so maybe he had nothing new to add to his list of reasons to dislike Sheppard. Maybe whatever black mark was in Sheppard's permanent record was worse than Sheppard being in a gay relationship. Or maybe he felt Sheppard was already being punished enough by choosing Rodney as his partner. Whatever the case, it gave Daniel hope that the inappropriate relationship could be swept under the military equivalent of the carpet given a little time and distance.

Daniel's thoughts returned to the dusty tome that had failed to hold his attention this morning, carefully turning the fragile page in the hope of finding some new insight into Atlantis to determine why she/it had sent back the non-ATA members of the expedition.

"Definitely a she," he murmured as he stared at a cracked and aged depiction of a beautiful woman who reminded him of the Ancient they had found near the Antarctic outpost, years earlier. Until the discovery of the Stargate and those first tentative steps across its event horizon, the only surviving records of Atlantis had come from Plato's Timaeus and Critias. Though they inspired the legend, he knew now that Plato's account was grossly inaccurate in all but one respect; Plato had set the story of Atlantis at over eight thousand years before his birth, which coincided with the return of the Atlanteans to Earth after the fabled loss of their island.

The Goa'uld had seeded the Milky Way with humans taken from Earth for almost as many millennia, with Ra finally overthrown and the Stargate buried almost four thousand years ago. Those slaves had taken with them their known histories both verbally and written, and the heavy book lying open in front of him was one such record. He knew now that the island of Atlantis was actually a massive spaceship, a flying city. He knew it had been named after the guardian who was left behind on Earth, to honor her commitment. The Cherokee doctor who had found her in a block of ice named her Ayiana, eternal bloom, but Daniel let his glove-covered finger drift beneath her true name, Atlantia. The next part was difficult to translate, almost implying that she had gone with them in spirit or in mind but Atlantia had died on Earth, killed by the plague that she cured in the ones who found her, leaving her body too weak to cure herself.

Daniel could almost feel the answer like a sweet taste on the tip of his tongue as he looked around the room at the shelves stacked with old manuscripts and books, of scrolls and maps and artifacts from races spread across the galaxy. It was an annoying sensation, reminding him that he had probably known far more while ascended, perhaps all of this, but that knowledge had been taken away, or buried within him when the Ancients sent him back as a mortal. He glanced back down at the page in frustration but jerked upright as Jack stormed into his research room, frowning when Jack slammed the door shut behind him, which was Daniel's signal to the rest of the world that he needed privacy for his work and wanted no interruptions. Closing his door was such a rare occurrence that people tended to adhere to the unspoken request, knowing it had to be of great importance for Daniel to cloister himself away willingly.

He pushed his glasses back up his nose. "Jack?"

Jack stared hard at him for a moment, mouth a tight line of anger, eyes narrowed. "They won't give me the _Daedalus_."

"Oh."

"They've given me another star though," he added sarcastically, leading Daniel's eyes to the collar of his uniform where the single star had doubled, denoting a new rank of Major General. "And a desk job at the Pentagon."

"What?"

Daniel shoved to his feet because this was not the way it was supposed to go. He'd told Jack to accept the original promotion because a lifetime of injuries had made him unfit for off world missions but at least he would still be in Cheyenne Mountain, would still be *here* with him. The Pentagon was over a thousand miles from here and Daniel could hardly bear the thought of not seeing him daily when he was not on missions either on Earth or on some alien world.

"That's...that's... stupid." Daniel ran a hand through his short hair and paced his room, agitated by this entire affair. He stopped and glared at Jack, as if it was all his fault. "I can't believe they'd...that you'd allow them to..."

He dragged off his glasses and threw them on top of the old tome before rubbing the heels of his hands against his eyes. His eyes felt gritty from too many long hours staring at old text, trying to translate the often faded writing and fill in the gaps where the ink had faded completely. With eyes squeezed tightly closed, he pushed hard against them, opening them fast when Jack grabbed his wrists and pulled his hands away.

"You think I wanted this?" Jack stepped into Daniel's personal space, backing Daniel until he was pressed against the door, wrists pinned either side of his head. "This is what I wanted...what I want."

The bruising kiss took Daniel by surprise, mashing his lips against his teeth as Jack pressed in harder, almost desperate. Daniel could feel the hardness at Jack's groin, pushing against his thigh as Jack shoved one leg between Daniel's. He groaned, struggling to free his wrists so he could grab at Jack and hold him tighter, never let him go, and was rewarded as one hand slipped free, allowing him to grab Jack's face and redirect the kiss, lips parting to allow Jack everything. As if aware of Daniel's submission on a subliminal level, Jack gave a half-sob and gentled the ferocity of his kiss, tongue stroking into Daniel's mouth, coiling around Daniel's, licking and sucking and still demanding possessively, and Daniel gave and gave. He gave Jack all he wanted, let him take whatever he needed, his own erection straining against Jack, body overloading as, for the first time since his horny teens, he came wet and hard in his pants.

Jack's tiny, hard thrusts stuttered, lips sliding apart as Jack buried his head against Daniel's neck, a low moan reverberating through his skin and adding to the gentle aftershocks that thrummed through Daniel's sated body. His knees felt weak and he realized that they were barely supporting each other's weight. Slowly, he collapsed to the floor, taking Jack down with him.

They sat there for a long time, harsh breathing softening back to normal, hands caressing bodies through too many layers of clothing, heads bowed, with foreheads almost pressing together.

"Damn," Jack breathed softly, tugging at the damp material at his groin. "Haven't done that in a while."

Daniel chuckled breathily, all too aware of the edge of hysteria in his almost silent laughter. He took a deep breath, lips grazing Jack's cheek before murmuring, "I want to be on the _Daedalus_ when it heads for Atlantis...and I want you to be there too. Even if we have to stowaway."

Jack nodded, cheeks puffing before blowing out a breath, and Daniel relaxed against his best friend, his lover, eyes heavy as he thought of the lost city that filled his dreams. Some how, Jack would make it happen and, if not, maybe Daniel could have a word with Hermiod and have them both kidnapped when the time came.

***

Rodney closed his eyes as he touched the control panel, willing the database to unlock so he could delve into its secrets. This was Janus' laboratory, the Ancient who had created the time machine that the aged Elizabeth had used to travel back in time to set into motion a new stream of events. Except, purely in the act of doing so she had created an alternate universe. In her universe, he had died when the city shield collapsed and the water breached the gate room. In her universe, John had escaped with her and Radek in Janus' time machine only to die when it was shot down by the Wraith laying siege to the city ten thousand years earlier. In her universe, John had left him behind though he comforted himself in the belief that John would have seen it as the only way to save him, by turning back time to ensure the city had enough power left to sustain the shield when they arrived ten thousand years later.

So much could have gone wrong in that time. If Janus had miscalculated the power consumption of the sleeping city, if Elizabeth had awoken too early or too late to rotate the ZPMs, or perhaps not awoken at all. Something nagged at the back of his mind though, making him feel uneasy because he hated mysteries. He recalled the original configuration of the ZPMs in their housing and realized that Elizabeth had been the one to disconnect each used ZPM, carelessly allowing any residual energy to drain away, thereby losing decades of the shield holding back the ocean in the process.

Then it struck him and he moved to the stasis control panel to confirm what had been playing on his mind, his lips parting in shock as he read the information more easily now he understood exactly what he was looking for. Someone or some thing had overridden Elizabeth's wake up call so the ZPMs would be rotated every four thousand years rather than at each third of the way through the ten thousand years as originally set by Janus. If the wake-up call had not been altered then all three ZPMs would have reached entropy by the time the Atlantis expedition set foot in the city, with the last of the energy used up as Atlantis tried to awaken from its slumber. In that scenario, she might have gained them just a few days and...

"I would have still drowned."

But who could have overridden the programming when everyone else had left? Certainly not Elizabeth, whose skills did not run to manipulating Ancient technology but, more importantly, why?

With technology this advanced, Rodney knew that Atlantis might be more than just a city but also an artificial intelligence. He swallowed hard and looked at the ornate walls that formed part of the city, seeing her in a new light. If Atlantis had an artificial intelligence then she had been waiting for them. She had been preparing for their arrival for ten thousand years, knowing from Elizabeth exactly when they would arrive and ensuring that they would have enough power to remain safe and secure once they got here. No, he thought. She had been preparing for the return of the natural descendants of the Ancients, the ATA gene carriers, but she must have known from the beginning that Elizabeth was non-ATA and that other non-ATA would be among their number, and had planned to send all the non-ATA back, including him.

For the first time, he wondered if Atlantis might also be sentient. An artificial intelligence followed its programming but had the ability to extrapolate so that could explain why it had altered its programming to select those possessing the recessive ATA-gene and 'correct them' when it realized there were insufficient naturals among the expedition. However, that did not explain why it had then singled out several non-ATA too. Their inclusive was emotional rather than logical because, with the increased number through selecting the recessive gene carriers, there were enough of each gender to make the inclusion of non-ATA superfluous for breeding purposes, if that was the city's intention. Certainly, the triggering of pheromones to induce sexual intercourse implied a breeding program.

However, Rodney was absolutely certain that Atlantis knew the difference between male and female so she must have known that he and John could not provide any offspring from their pheromone-induced sex. Even so, in a fit of paranoia, he had insisted that Carson verify that neither he nor John had undergone a spontaneous gender-swap, or grown female reproductive organs alongside their very male attributes. As far as Carson could see, and that was right down to the DNA, they were both still one hundred percent male, and neither of them was pregnant in any shape or form. No new internal organs, and no hidden pouches or anything else that would normally belong in the realms of science fiction, of which he had read far too much as a child and teen.

He shook his head, knowing he was allowing his thoughts to move off at a tangent, and focused back on the problem at hand.

If Atlantis was an artificial intelligence or had sentience then that answered the question of who had altered the wake-up calls, but not why. From everything he had seen, Janus was not an idiot. The Ancient scientist would have worked out the shorter timing between each rotation of the ZPM for a very good reason and Rodney could think of only one; Janus had not wanted Atlantis to have all the power she needed when they arrived. He had not wanted her to be waiting for them. Perhaps he had foreseen what would happen, how she would accept only her 'children' and discard the rest. Perhaps he had feared that, after ten thousand years, she would show no compassion at all for those that did not possess the ATA gene, killing them outright or sending them to a gate in orbit above a distant world.

He chewed on his hand nervously because this was all mere speculation on his part but, maybe this alternate Elizabeth had a few more answers.

When he arrived back at the infirmary he could tell that Elizabeth was barely holding on to life and he felt the first pangs of sorrow for her. Although she could be a little too much of a bureaucrat occasionally, with a tendency to want to control those around her, he had genuinely liked her. She had strength and determination tempered with more compassion and morals than the vast majority of politicians could manage, and she had given her life to keep them safe. She had stepped into the stasis chamber as a vibrant woman in her mid-thirties and now, in what could only be a matter of days for her, she lay on the brink of death from extreme old age. Rodney thought about the Wraith and how they sucked the life out of a person leaving them withered and sered with age. In a sense, Elizabeth had allowed the centuries in stasis to do the same to her, and all for them.

"Where am I?"

He looked down at her sadly, knowing her mind was going but she frowned, adding more wrinkles to a face already lined with the passing millennia.

"Where is your Elizabeth?"

Rodney glanced towards John, cheeks heating with embarrassment from his earlier thought concerning her mental acuity. John took pity on him and answered.

"When we arrived, all the non-ATA people were separated somehow, and sent back to Earth."

"No!" She cried weakly. "Janus made certain that couldn't happen, that there.... would be only sufficient power left... to raise the city from the bottom of the ocean. None left for...her. He left an emergency protocol... for when the ZPM energy dropped below... the minimum for the shields."

She turned her head first one way and then the other, looking for something. "Did the city rise?"

"We're still under hundreds of feet of water, and we can't dial out." John stated, "But that's better than the alternative."

Her eyes fluttered closed. "I'm so sorry, John...Rodney. I failed you."

Rodney reached out and grasped her frail hand gently. "No. We're alive...or at least I've not drowned yet."

She looked straight into his eyes and smiled warmly, her eyelids growing heavy as she sank back into sleep, worn out by just a few minutes of conversation.

Carson monitored her breathing for a moment. "She'll sleep for a while now...but she won't last much longer. She's very old."

"Can I stay?" Rodney did not bother to mention for how long because they all knew that Carson was talking in hours rather than days before Elizabeth succumbed to the ravages of time. Carson nodded and indicated to the nearby bed.

"Perhaps you could get a wee nap yourself, Rodney. You look exhausted."

Rodney noticed John's narrow-eyed gaze, saw him cataloging the lines of fatigue and the dark circles beneath his eyes but these few weeks had been fraught with worry mixed with the amazing discoveries that kept his mind from finding true peace except within the circle of John's arms. He settled onto the bed, smiling softly when John kissed him sweetly before setting up a chair close enough to watch over both him and Elizabeth.

She died a few hours later, her final words drawing him out of a light sleep and giving him little time to say goodbye.

"I'm so...sorry, Rodney."

***

John drew Rodney from the infirmary, sending quiet orders through his radio that he and Rodney were not to be disturbed this night except in an emergency. He led Rodney back to their room and let the door close behind them, the lock engaging at a single thought. Slowly, he stripped his tired lover, pressing small chaste kisses on newly exposed flesh. He pushed on Rodney's shoulder, forcing him to sit on the edge of the bed while John removed his shoes and socks before drawing off his pants and boxers. Once naked, he encouraged Rodney to crawl beneath the covers, swiftly stripping off his own clothing and settling down beside Rodney, drawing his lover's strong but pliant body into his arms and pressing Rodney's head against his furred chest. An arm wrapped around his torso and a leg pushed between John's as Rodney sighed deeply, his warm breath fanning over John's chest, making his skin tingle with pleasure. For once, sex was not on his mind even though he adored the body lying quietly in his arms, loved touching him and caressing him, loved seeing Rodney caught in the throes of passion, whimpering and moaning in need and desire. Instead, he offered comfort to his exhausted lover, falling into sleep together, locked in each other's arms.

Seven weeks had passed since they stepped through the Stargate and into Atlantis and John had spent all but a few nights wrapped in his lover's arms if only for a few hours, and on those few nights he had not slept at all. Now, he could no longer imagine sleeping alone and, even though a part of him wanted them to be 'rescued', a greater part of him never wanted to go back to being the lonely man who had stared across the frozen wastes of Antarctica from the cockpit of a helicopter, forced into that loneliness by military rules and regulations.

Rodney was his life now and he wanted his lover beside him in all ways, freely and openly, and without censure from others. Atlantis had given him that and he hoped no one would try to take that away from him.

In his sleep, Rodney smiled and sighed gently once more, wrapped in a cocoon of warmth as John and Atlantis soothed his tired mind and body.

THE END


End file.
